I have a PCMCI Linksys WPC11 ver 3.0 and it works great with puppy, it recognizes it as eth1.

As a newbie, what you need to do is the following:

1. Install your router without security (No WEP and do broadcast the essid)
2. Test that the connection works
3. Apply security (I would not dream of using my wireless without encryption)

In more detail:

1. Follow the instructions for your router, here I cannot be of more help but routers are usually well documented (at least my linksys is)

2.
- Open a rtvt console
- type the following (without my comments)

Code:

# The next command will list all the network devices. It will tell you which ones is the wireless one.
iwconfig

Open the ethernet/network wizard
Click on the test_<device> where <device> is the name you got from the last step
(Replace <device> with the name of the device in all my instructions.)
If it tells you that the device is connected, just click on the configure_<device> button and you are in business.

3. To add security follow your router instructions, and write down the following:
- ESSID that you assigned to the router
- WEP key generated (this is like a password in hexadecimal)

Bear in mind that this is an 'old' card. I've had it for a couple of years.

This means two things:
- It only supports band 'Wireless-B' band.
- You may be able to find one very cheap.

If you are mostly connecting to the internet, Wireless-B is perfect. If you are going to have a lot of internal network trafic (between computers in your own home network) then you may want to have Wireles-G speed. I am still quite happy with Wireless-B.

Although Linksys is a well supported card, I would still do some research for how well that card works with your particular laptop.

These cards maybe the old Prism 2/2.5 based cards, they are getting thin on the ground and manufactureres are notorious for changing chipset's through a models lifespan, so be very careful about which Version of the card you grab...

I use a DWL-G630 H\W Ver:D1 Firmware Ver:4.00......The only thing I have to do is load the driver and then bring it up.....

ie

#modprobe ath_pci
#ifconfig ath0 192.168.1.130

and it automagically configures itself to my access point......BTW these cards are quite common

After your first boot add these lines to the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local (with of course using the iso version I mentioned) and bang puppy "auto detects your card"

But considering I'm only using a dialup connection and have a "roll my own" accesspoint, I have a finer grain of control about what goes in & out plus the internet connection isn't on 24/7.

Tho i really should setup a mac blacklist for the wireless connection and then again for the routing plus install a radius server.
At the moment there is nothing I've got that I don't mind others seeing.
The access point is an on going project and so far my router log files don't show anything untoward....
What would they get off my file server ?

Linux iso's and some source tarballs......Hey I got the whole puppy collection (well just about).

I run my network completely without security, but that is because my house is pretty well isolated. It's an old farm house with thick brick walls, so I can barely get a signal right outside the door. If any of the residents of the nearest building, which is a sort of retirement home about 1000' away, can get onto my network, I say they deserve some of my bandwidth!

On a related note, I too have a wireless card that is autodetected (well, as autodetected as they get in puppy). I bought a laptop on ebay about two weeks ago for a song, and I got very lucky with the included wireless card. The network wizard sees it as eth1, and all I have to do is click the "use dchp" button, and everything is great! I don't have it with me at the moment, but I'll post the model tonight. I do know that it's a 802.11B card, so it might be somewhat old.

A) Don't broadcast the ESSID
B) Enable WEP in the router
C) Restrict the allowed MAC addresses to the computers you trust

Even that is not very secure A) and C) provide very little extra security, and WEP can be cracked with Airsnort in very little time.
It will slow people down and prevent the "casual" user from getting in though.

I have no experience with wireless on linux, so I don;t know if/how WPA/WPA is supported but WPA security is much much better (a way to think about it is that the key changes for every packet sent on the network).

I do live in an area where it's easy to "steal" bandwidth from each other, so I think WEP is not paranoid enough._________________Mandriva LE 2005 user and puppy newbie

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